Friday

No Salsa tonight - after a particularly hard weak at work, I was shattered by the time Friday evening came around.

Saturday

Began my weekend Salsa shenanigans by going to Michael and Maxine's class at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. The classes take place in the main Dance Studio. These two, along with Keefe, are extremely good teachers and I would attend on a weekly basis if I could.

Later in the evening, we'd planned to go to the Colliery Club's first birthday party, which is a joint promotion between Latin Motion and SalsaDelic.

Mel, Cat, and I left quite late, and we picked Sofia up on the way. Sofia has been dancing in Birmingham for about 18 months now, and she joined Mel's student team a few months ago. She's only recently started coming out on our travels but is due to head back to live in France in a couple of weeks!

We got to the Colliery Club at about 11pm. It's a large, open-plan venue, with a huge sprung dancefloor and was fairly full by the time we arrived.

The shows were on at about midnight and were by the Seraphim and Con Tambor Student Groups. I was particularly impressed by the Con Tambor show, although both groups did really well! A particular highlight was that Mark, an old friend of Mel's, was part of the Con Tambor group - we had no idea he'd been rehearsing with them!! I videoed both performances, so they'll be online soon.

After the shows, the guest DJ for the night, DJ Clave (aka Mark of Salsa Oxford), took over and span a good wide selection for the crowd, keeping the dancefloor busy throughout.

We stayed until just before the end then made our way home. I'd had a couple of drinks, so Mel was designated driver - made easy by the fact that she's not drinking at the moment :-)

Sunday

A long day at Scala beckoned, with Mel due to teach a class at 2pm, me to DJ from 10.30pm, and the night ending at 6am. A last minute hotel room booking was needed, and we just managed to get ourselves a triple room at the Travelodge, 5 minutes from the venue.

Mel, Cat, and I set off, again picking Sofia up on the way, and headed down the M40 to London. Didn't have time to park, so I dropped the girls off outside the club about 5 minutes before the class was due to start, drove to the hotel, parked, and walked back to the venue.

The Scalalatina events are promoted by Joe Davids of The Latin Collective, and this particular event was part of a weekender billed as the London Latin Minifest, a prequel to August's Latinfest. Nelson Flores was the headliner of a huge list of guests and residents.

This was my first time attending a Salsa event at the labyrinth that is Scala. Mel was in the top room, so I headed up, and chatted to David Hynes for the duration of her well-attended class. We then watched a couple of other classes before heading for food at a local Italian.

Once we'd eaten, it was back to the club, and we watched a couple of Nelson Flores' classes while catching up with a few people. Once they were over, we managed to get a video interview with Nelson, followed by him telling us a few stories off camera!

Back to the hotel to get changed. We'd only booked the one room, a rather cosy triple for the four of us. I got freshened up, grabbed my CD folder and camera, then headed back to Scala, leaving the girls to do their thing.

I was due to play the warm-up set, up to the first lot of shows. Really enjoyed my set, and managed to squeeze in a few gems while keeping the dancefloor full! Got a great compliment from Julian The Duke, so that topped the night off well!

Scala was quite packed by the time I finished, and the first set of shows. I ended up leaving around 2am, flagging after a long day and a bit to drink! Mel and Cat got back at about 4am, while Sofia stayed to the end, rolling in at about 6.30am.

After a few hours sleep, we went for breakfast at an old favourite in Stoke Newington before heading back.

Next up - the Salsa Central first birthday on the 31st…..

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